What is an exoplanet?
The Solar System contains eight planets orbiting our local star, the Sun. But did you know that there are many, many more planets out there in space, orbiting the stars we see at night? These are called extrasolar planets, or exoplanets for short.
Discovering exoplanets is extremely difficult. They are so far away that we cannot simply look through a regular telescope and see them. They are also very small and faint compared to the stars that they orbit. This means that exoplanet-hunting astronomers need to use some clever techniques!
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Let’s learn more about exoplanets and the techniques used to discover them:
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Last modified 12 April 2021
